Day One-Hundred-Eighty-One, Thanks

It is meant to be fairly cold tonight, thirty-seven or so.  But I am not intimidated.  Our brave Pilgrims suffered worse.  As will I in a couple of days.  Again it will drop below freezing.  Winter. Just when I thought I was free, it pulls me back in.

I should be forgiven for thinking I had it beat.  It was nearly eighty out there.  And seemed every bit like a summer day.  I saw a chameleon.  Or some kind of lizard.  I wasn't alarmed.  I'm sure the snakes are still all abed.  They don't have hands to rub together when the weather turns cold.

The sky was blue when I left my motel.  I was there until check-out time.  Wondering if the holiday would excuse another day off.  I was still not well rested.  I'd had two sleepless nights, nursing my little computer.  It really ought to be euthanised.  Or put up for vivisection.

But I had to move.  It was too nice a day.  I did get a few things done.  I had a professional tidy my hair and invested in new underpants.  My earlier shorts have quite worn through, either from friction or stink.  And they're all that preserves my modesty on the rainier days.  Still it is a regretable expense.  I wish I could do without.  In the future when I'm really rich I'm not going to spend a dime on underpants.

I didn't spend much.  I got them at a discount underwear boutique.  That's the beauty of these larger town.  You can save if you've got time to shop.  I was less fortunate with my haircut.  That was done at the Walmart salon.  Behind glass so the waddling hoards could stop by and gawk at me.  I felt like a puppy in a pet store window, having his glands sqeezed.

A haircut is an intimate act.  I have a neurosis or two.  I'm shy around waiters.  I can't buy toilet paper.  I am afraid of vending machines.  And it takes some courage to get my hair cut, even when people aren't watching.  She wanted nine extra dollars to prune my beard.  I decided to let that grow.

Today was Thanksgiving as you no doubt suspect.  That's why they fed you so well.  I could not spend the day with my family.  Some have you have been sorry for me.  But I'm fine.  What is cloud and what's silver lining is not always perfectly clear.

There was a holiday mood on the streets.  There were few people about.  Even at Walmart when I went to buy cheese.  Everywhere else was closed.  So I did feel some small self-pity.  I would not get properly fed.  But I would be nourished on martyrdom.  That's how I got so big.

I guess I do look like a hobo.  People looked out from passing cars.  As I stumbled down the edge of the road.  It was the same sad condescension.  I did my best to look forlorn so someone would give me pie.

I tell you, though, it's a slippery slope.  You can choose what mood to be in.  I just so happen to know what it's like to be in a months long depression.  There's a Beauty in sadness, don't get me wrong.  I value the education.  But better you should pretend to be happy, whether you are or not.

So it was in high spirits that I hiked out of town.  Higher still minutes later.  I had come across an open Waffle House, my new favorite restaurant.  They've got eight kinds of hash browns.  Eight.  And they serve breakfast all day long.  And pie.  And their coffee has a vaguely maply flavour.

So does their syrup.  And everyone's friendly.  And you get to watch them cook.  I'm going to have my wedding breakfast in a Waffle House.  I'll have them cater the reception.  All I am lacking is the bride.  I hope she likes waffles.

I didn't have any waffles myself.  I ordered my usual.  Which is, in review, biscuits and gravy, two eggs, sausage and hash browns.  Which turned out to be an awful lot.  I had not walked much the day before.  I hadn't earned my appetite.  I still finished up with pie.  It is Thanksgiving after all.  Think of those suffering Pilgrims.

It was all uphill from there.  I had quite overstuffed of myself.  But up I went for ten or twelve miles on Highway 145.  Which is the old road.  45 is the new.  They are more or less braided together.  Crossing each other several times.  I moved to 45 at the end.  It looked like it offered more places to camp.  The old road has too many houses.  Find me now in a private wood, eight miles north of Quitman, Mississippi.

A bit deeper in the woods than I like to be.  Remind me to wear my hat.  It is usually the last thing I put on, right before I ship out.  But it is a four-day weekend in hunting season.  I believe I will break protocol.

QUITMAN.  Quitman.  Quit, man.  It could mean anything.  I'm going to need my Message From God to be something less obscure.

MY MOTHER, a trained zoologist and veterinary physician, says that if I am attacked by a gator I should thumb him in the eyes and kick him in the groin.  Gators though were never her specialty.

THANKSGIVING.  I am thankful.  For all manner of things.  But I won't mention them.  It would be too much like bragging.  I am thankful to be on this trip.

"Chicks dig me because I rarely wear underwear, and when I do it's usually something unusual."

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Day One-Hundred-Forty-Eight, Parful Sore

I slept soundly. Let us admit there are benefits to toxic waste. The fumes that permeated my tent knocked this camper out cold. And yet I did wake up, and wake up early, with only the mildest hangover. And I had had any number of spectacular dreams, none of which I recall now.

It took some courage to climb back on the road. There is no shoulder at all. No shoulder. None. And the roads are narrow and they drive here like maniacs. And I am just not Feeling the Love, as it were. Nobody seems glad to see me. Two of them even swerved at me in an effort to squish me dead.

Now I'm pretty sure they meant to be funny. They were just trying to give me a scare. It may be true but don't let it be said that I can't take a joke. I've long been a student of comedy. I think humour's the highest art. Really. Try it again. We'll laugh together. I'll go slapstick on your ass.

I struggle too with my Walmart boots. They make walking a chore. I salute the Chinese orphans who made them, but they just aren't up to job. They do not flex so they shorten my stride. And bring all the wrong muscles into play. I wind up working twice as hard to go just two-thirds as far.

And they slap the ground, clomp, clomp. I've lost my catlike grace. When my right foot goes down my teeth clack together. I've got to keep my jaw tight. While watching out for cars and climbing some of the steepest hills on this trip.

Rough day.

I ain't complaining. Not exactly. I'm just letting you know how things stand. Today was even a victory of sorts. I walked almost twenty miles. Which may not sound like much to you, but in these shoes, and over this terrain, I have some right to be pleased. And muscle ache is not such a bad thing. That's what it feels like to get strong. Another two-hundred miles in these shoes and I'll be a superman.

Of course I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror today. I'm looking awfully scrawny. Not sickly exactly but lanky somehow. Like Shaggy on Scooby-Doo. I suppose I'm fitter than I've ever been. This has happened once before. That was when I lived in India and got the dysentery.

Owensville, Missouri was only five miles off, but it was a struggle to get there. My legs were shaking under the strain and I do have some cuts on my feet. I had to stop twice, once in a park where I put some charge on my computer. Most of the people there glared at me like I was some kind of a creep.

I found a mailman outside a McDonald's. I asked him if there were anywhere to eat. He looked like Billy Bob Thornton. He asked if I were "parful hungry." Parful hungry enough, I figured. He told me just where to go.

"Number two-hundred-and-six First Avenue." He meant a local cafe. But I really like that he said it like that. It was so very postal. Like when truck drivers help me plan my walk by telling me where to downshift. It shows a real expertise, and gives me a glimpse of their world.

I would only eat once today. I decided to do it right. It'd been too long since I'd had biscuits and gravy and sausage and hash browns and eggs. And toast. It came on two plates. It was all a little bland. I should have saved my sausage to bribe the mean dogs on the road.

I stayed there a couple of hours. I did not make any friends. People went on eyeing me suspiciously. They don't cotton to strangers in these parts. At any rate, I have failed to charm them. I'll be glad when I'm gone.

I am five or six miles north of Cuba, Missouri, camped in a dodgy spot. I had to come over a barbed wire fence. It was getting dark. I followed an old road between the woods a bank, up to a sort of plateau. Which turned out to be a pond. I am beside it now.

On private land. I hear dogs barking. I hope they don't find me here. A lot of the dogs in Missouri are mean and I ate all my sausage myself.

I am too low on water. I hate to even type as much. Just the thought of it swells my tongue and makes my throat clench up. But town is less than two hours off. I'll try to wake up early. And make my way to a better road and live to tell the tale.


I SAW AN armadiller, dead but not so far squished as to be unrecognisable. Weird-looking critters, armadillers.

IT WAS in fact warm today, high seventies, I reckon. Cold now, though.

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Day One-Hundred-Eight, Weight

As I suspected I did get a very late start. I did not wake til eight-thirty. I'd had the damnedest time falling asleep. I was in a peculiar mood. Happiness, most people would call it. It's rather foreign to me. You hate to waste that sort of thing by sleeping it all away.

God knows what had made me so jolly. I had met some very nice folks. And a warmish wind was shaking my tent in a not unpleasing way. Autumn just gets better each year. It is best at two or three in the morning. I guess I know that better than anyone. I have never kept regular hours.

I was pleased to discover in the morning light that Newport has a town motto. It is, faithfully reproduced here, Hay Capitol of the World. It did get me thinking, but I'm not so sure. It could lead to anarchy. You don't want your seat of government vulnerable to any half-dozen malcontents with pitchforks and torches. Better our capitol be made from stone. Worry more about the strawmen within.

[I am at once pleased with and ashamed of the above paragraph. If I had more time I'd tinker with it some. In the end I'd dispense with it altogether, or I'd save it for some other day. I leave it here as a small gift of thanks to the people of Newport, Nebraska.]

Breakfast was served at the gas station a good quarter mile away. Out of my way, to tell the truth, but I think it was worth the hike. For just last week this particular gas station had distinguished itself by exploding. I swear to golly. It was in the newspaper and everything.

It seems a very tenacious little bolt of lightning worked its way down a series of pipes and past several valves to set their underground diesel tank on fire. It blew a big chunk out of their parking lot and sent a fireball into the sky. It's a small town; people keep to themselves. Nobody really noticed. The owner did not discover the mess until she came into work the next day.

No one got hurt. The building was fine. There is too a small cafe. And it's for sale if you're interested. Act quick and you might get it cheap. There are awfully nice people working there. Try to keep them on if you can.

I bellied up at the cafe. I was wanting to test a theory. I have found that I do some of my very best walking after a hearty breakfast. So I naturally wondered if I couldn't walk better still after two hearty breakfasts. I ordered everything on the menu and topped it off with a gallon of Coke. I believe I fairly impressed my waitress. She had never seen such gluttony.

It was only when I went to pay my check that I discovered that my new friend Farmer Rick had conspired to treat me to breakfast. I feel kind of bad about that. I am delighted at his generosity, and by his support, but had I known I would have taken it a bit easier on him.

And my theory, such as it was, wound up being disproven. I walked only about as far as I would have on just one hearty breakfast. And I suffered from a sort of stomachache that lasted most of the day. Live and learn, live and learn. I'm just sorry to have involved anyone else.

Ten miles or so took me to Stuart, Nebraska. Stuart is doing well. It is a town of maybe 600 people. It does not seem to be in decline. It has a big junkyard and some pretty churches. Most of the houses look lived in. And they have a nice park with its own race track, maybe an eighth mile round. Dirt. For racing small cars, or whatever occurs to them. It is overlooked by a grandstand, about half the size of the bleachers in my high school gym.

They have too showers. They run on coins. I could not have been better pleased. That is until I discovered that the shower had been, shall we say, soiled, in the most ungentlemanly way imaginable. I washed as best I could at a spiggot, thinking ill of Stuart, Nebraska.

That's the trouble though with these big town. A smaller town wouldn't stand for that. Everyone would know at once just who it was and rub his nose in it. Or beat him with a rolled up newspaper. Or call him out in church. But it is the nature of the metropolis to draw these disgusting vandals.

It was by now four o'clock, and soon enough five. I was in danger of a very poor day. I had maybe three more hours of daylight to walk another ten miles. No naps under trees, no staring at the sky. No otherwise messing around. I just put my head down and walked, ten miles to Atkinson.

It is my usual practice to ask what sort of town I'll find the road. But I didn't feel so chatty in Stuart. I knew one of them must be the one. Who robbed me of my well-earned shower and made weep at the Nature of Man. So I took off for Atkinson uninformed. I figured it must be small.

But some five miles out I began to see life, welding shops and the like. Atkinson is a town with outskirts. It's a town of some 1300 people. Which is not good news late in the day. I had to camp in their park. Which is charmingly eccentric in a town of fifty. In a city it makes me a bum.

But here I am, anyway, expecting to be rousted by the law. I did have the good fortune of making friends with the president of the Chamber of Commerce. I intend to drop her name liberally if it becomes a matter of law. We all know who pulls the strings in America, and in this case they're on my side.

I did take the precaution of eating a cheeseburger at tbe local bowling alley. I was not very very hungry. Breakfast was still weighing me down. But it was still too bright to put up my tent. No sense in drawing attention.

I guess it was ladies' league night. Six of eight lanes were full. And my burger was slow in coming and my fries were underdone. Many if not most of the women there reminded me of Roseanne Barr.

I quite like Roseanne Barr. I think America owes her an apology. She came on the scene and spoke some truths so we made fun of her for being fat. Maybe she could have handled it all better but she was sorely mistreated. She made people laugh, they made her rich, she made them think and they destroyed her. Shame.

I liked watching the ladies bowl. I like to see fat people having fun. There are more of us now than there are of you. You'd better not piss us off.


I SPENT YEARS in a city of three million people. Years more in a city of twenty. Now I feel nervous and vulnerable in Atkinson, Nebraska.

IT WOULD be best if the cops wake me at about 6:30. Not before six certainly, and please, no later than seven.

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